page_title: Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
section_title: Magic lantern
hierarchical_section_title: Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae / Illustrations / Magic lantern
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of a magic lantern from “Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae”
context_page_description: Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae is 1646 a work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was dedicated to Ferdinand IV, King of the Romans and published in Rome by Lodovico Grignani. A second edition was published in Amsterdam in 1671 by Johann Jansson. Ars Magna was the first description published in Europe of the illumination and projection of images. The book contains the first printed illustration of Saturn and the 1671 edition also contained a description of the magic lantern.
  Ars magna lucis et umbrae followed soon after Kircher's work on magnetism, Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica and the title was a play on words. In his introduction Kircher notes that the word 'magna' alluded to the powers of the magnet, so that the title could also be read “The Magnetic Art of Light and Shadow”. The work was well-known for several decades.
context_section_description: Kircher's unusual depiction of the magic lantern has been taken by some critics to mean that he had not actually built one or seen it operate, since the illustration shows the mirror not properly alighted with the light source and the glass slider appears in front of the lens tube rather than behind it.  Some argue that these anomalies are due to mistakes by the Dutch publisher Waesberghe; however others hold that the mechanism would work as depicted and that it was a variant of the normal type, designed as an analogicical demonstration of the Neoplatonic metaphysics of light.
caption: Illustration of a magic lantern from “Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae”
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